


Election Season

by audrenes



Series: a happy life for me [2]
Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Far Future, Galo and Lio are grandparents, M/M, Sibling Bonding, mentions of Gueira/Meis, self indulgent, sibling shenanigans, the original characters are their kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22041454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audrenes/pseuds/audrenes
Summary: It's election season, which means that Thalia Fotia-Thymos is one coffee cup away from doing something reckless and impulsive, especially when her brother is in town, also bound to do something reckless and impulsive.Meaning, her campaign manager snitched on her to her dads and now they're waiting for her brother to come home and take some preventative measures if anything should happen.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Series: a happy life for me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586515
Kudos: 28





	Election Season

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooooooo I accidentally focused more on Thalia and Arie than Galo and Lio, but hopefully their relationship shines through them?? Aha anyway, [here are my designs for them](https://twitter.com/https_aj/status/1211691728496930817). I'm digging a hole for myself.
> 
> This is entirely self-indulgent so I hope y'all enjoy it too, haha!!

It was a pretty warm day for mid-fall in Promepolis.

For Lio, it meant wearing a long sleeve and a thick cable-knit sweater Galo had made for him for the first winter they were together. For Galo, it meant being able to buy pumpkin-spiced drinks again at the cafe a block away from the fire station before he went in for work.

For their daughter, though, it meant being wound tight like a guitar string ready to snap.

It was election season in Promepolis, and Thalia Fotia-Thymos was stressed out of her mind.

For the past year, she and her team had been campaigning non-stop, making efforts to lay her platform out bare and in the gaudiest, yet cost-efficient way possible. Because while she wanted to go all-out on her presentation, she was also mindful of how she would use donation money. Paying her staff first, _then_ getting that new hologram projector to use to drive her point in on how they could cut down on government spending to distribute tax payer money to the people who needed it-- particularly, the former-Burnish who were still struggling due to residual discrimination from certain groups of people. It was a cycle.

And now, as the campaigning season was drawing to a close, she was one cup of coffee away from doing something absolutely impulsive and reckless.

Which is why her campaign manager had called in her parents, because _of course_ she had to.

Thalia would look away from the TV screen every now and then to see her two fathers in the same position as they were the last time she looked at them. Both on the couch, with Galo's legs on Lio's lap as the former played a video game while the latter was reading a book that was set to turn into a movie that Arie was going to star in.

Speaking of Arie.

Arie was pretty much moved out of Promepolis because of the nature of his job, but for some ungodly reason, he was going to be in town for the next two weeks, which meant that his presence both physical-wise and reputation-wise were going to be in Promepolis and _that_ meant that there would be a slew of reporters dying to hear his uncensored opinion of one of the candidates for governor.

Arie's manager, Egan, was around the same age as Thalia and her brother, and had a flashy, but responsible personality-- it made sense to Thalia why they became quick friends. Because of that, she had his number at the ready and had texted him fervently in the days awaiting her brother's arrival.

"Texting Egan again?" Lio asked as he flipped a book.

"Egan is the MVP for the next two weeks," Thalia replied as she continued to pace in front of the TV. "He is the only person I can count on to make sure Arie doesn't say something that's gonna affect the polls and to keep him on a leash."

"Arie isn't his dog, bud," Galo reminded her as he continued his fetch quest on his game.

"Well--" Thalia paused, remembering who she was talking to. She wanted to make a joke about how Arie was only Egan's dog if they wanted to be, but that was going to create an uncomfortable and awkward conversation, one that the three of them had to wade through the last time she paid Arie a surprise visit. "Nevermind."

Lio cocked a brow, ever the hyper-observant parent between him and Galo. "Uh-huh."

He didn't want to know, but it didn't stop him from being suspicious of his children, even though they're both in their thirties.

Thalia continued to pace for five more minutes before she heard something being placed on the table and the weight on the couch shift. When she looked up, she saw Galo make space between himself and Lio on the couch.

"C'mon bud, take a seat, you're gonna make a moat on the carpet and the donation money's gotta stay for your campaign," he said as he patted the seat. "I warmed it up for you and everything!"

Thalia sighed, relenting and taking up Galo's offer.

Galo gave his daughter an arm hug and drew her in. "That's my girl!"

_"Pooooooooops!"_ Thalia groaned, embarrassed, even though it was just the three of them. Galo only laughed and pressed a kiss on the side of her head.

"How about I order us some pizza? Take our minds off of the TV for a moment?"

"Pops, you're sounding like a pre-blazer. Also, no. We're gonna have dinner at my place later, remember?"

"Oh yeah. And also! _Me?_ A pre-blazer?" Galo asked, scandalized. "You're telling that to the number one supporter of technology? Lio, are we in the right room and I didn't just hug a stranger?"

"Not sure," Lio reached for the remote to change the channel before he flipped the page on his book.

"Ugh, _dad,_ not you too!"

Lio sighed and placed his book on the coffee table. 

"Thalia, you are incredibly stressed out right now because of your brother's visit," Lio states. "And we're here to be here for you until he gets home, so let us be here for you."

"But--"

"We're gonna accept this spiral, bud," Galo said, squeezing his daughter's shoulders. "What's on your mind? Why are you so on edge about your brother's visit?"

"Pops, this only works when it's something I can't actively change," Thalia grumbled. "Arie hasn't spoken to anyone, I can still--"

And, as if on cue for the world to show Thalia how much it loves to throw her into the ocean, Arie's face appears on screen. He's currently on a live talk show and the network is playing the trailer for the movie he's about to be in before his interview begins.

" _Ohhhh..._ oh, I don't know if I can watch this," Thalia shoves her face into her hands.

Galo reaches for the remote. "Well, we don't have to--"

"No, don't change it!"

"O...kay..." Galo shoots his husband a worried look. Lio returns it, but hesitates on letting their daughter be, no matter how much she looks like she wants to get out of the room and drag Arie into a safe room until election day herself.

Lio squeezes Thalia's hand. "It'll be fine, Thalia."

Thalia nods weakly as she holds her father's hand.

The applause from the TV dies as the talk show host, Ashton Flint starts to speak. _"I'm speaking to Arie Fotia-Thymos, who's set to star in_ Chasing Fire, _which will be in theaters next month."_

Arie's face flashes on the screen, and while it may probably be the billionth time Galo and Lio have seen their son on screen, it still fills them with pride and joy seeing him live out his dream. Meanwhile, Thalia is in between them, ready to explode.

 _"Hi, Ashton, I'm happy to be here,"_ Arie greets, his warm voice earning another round of cheering from the audience, his expression looking like he's too blissed out to be aware of where he's in.

When Thalia looked at his face on the screen, all she could think about was when she was first running for an office and the press asking if her brother engaged in any drugs, recreational or otherwise, to which she was ready to fight the reporter for because she wasn't just going to let some joker try to drag her and her brother's name through the mud, especially since Arie was trying to get his own footing as an actor at the time.

In the end, it didn't matter what her reply was because the reporter was unsatisfied with her answer and had tried and failed to ask Arie the same question, but in a more roundabout way.

And did the reporter regret going to him.

Thalia remembered how the same reporter had written about how Arie had sat him down and given him a whole powerpoint presentation on why he personally didn't participate in drug use, how the question sounded like the reporter was trying to make a dig at addicts, who were just victims of Foresight Foundation's abuse, and how Thalia was working to combat that.

Thalia softened at that memory.

Her brother may be a bit of an airhead, but he was still her brother. There was no way that he would just throw her under the bus like that--

_"Oh yeah, Thalia's really good at_ Monopoly... Risk... Secret Hitler... _those are all government-related games, right? She'd crush it as governor."_

Thalia clenches her fists. "I'm going to kill him."

"O- _kay_ ," Lio grunts as he manages to slip his hand out from his daughter's vice grip.

 _"Haha, is that so?"_ Ashton laughs nervously.

Ashton, as Egan had texted Thalia earlier, was a known supporter of Thalia's, which is why he had Arie go on his show: if he said something stupid, Ashton had the improv skills of a person with nothing left to lose to cover it up.

 _"Mhm,"_ Arie nods. _"Haha, one time she convinced our dad that he was holding the Hitler card even though she had it. It worked."_

"Haha! I remember that!!" If Lio gently slapped his husband's back after that comment, Thalia didn't notice.

 _"Thalia's always been on top of everything and stuff and always wanted to tag along with dad instead of pops whenever it was take your child to work day. It wasn't much of a surprise when she said she wanted to go into politics. Dad said she was too much like pops to have any patience for it, but she said that it was exactly why she wanted to go into it, y'know? Speed up all of the bureaucratic stuff with the classic Fotia-Thymos way--"_ Arie paused, giving a small invitation for the audience to say the next words with him. _"Going balls to the walls."_

As her fathers said the words along with Arie, Thalia could feel some of the tension in her shoulders disappear.

_"Thalia's always believed in me when it came to acting, 'cause no one ever thought that I could do it since I was kind of an airhead-- which I still am, haha,"_ Arie laughs. _"If pops is the world's number one firefighting idiot, then I'm the world's number one acting idiot."_

Thalia huffs out a smile and allowed herself to lean against her dads as they laughed along with Arie.

 _"It kind of sucks seeing people try to tear her down when she's just trying to do what our dad did, which was doing his best to make sure people are on equal ground when it comes to basic human needs,"_ The audience quiets down as Arie continues to speak. _"It's been a few terms since our dad has been in office, but the former-Burnish are still being discriminated against. It's hard work and even though a lot of people expect a lot from her and I know absolutely nothing about politics or whatever, I know that Thalia's going to do her best and she's gonna work extra hard at it."_

_"Arie, that's... wow..."_

 _"Haha, I know, right? I wrote that last night and kept repeating it to myself because I didn't wanna screw up and say something stupid that would mess with Thalia's campaign,"_ Arie laughs as he pulls out a piece of paper, and turns it to the camera. When it zooms in, it has more or less what he just said in his writing. _"She's probably stressed out of her mind right now, just like when she visited me a few months ago and haha--"_

Thankfully for everyone involved in the story, Arie got too caught up laughing at the memory, unable to speak, but had enough charisma for Ashton and the audience to not only be amused by him but also laugh with him and it went on long enough for Ashton to call for commercial.

As Thalia breathed a long sigh of relief and collapsed onto Galo's shoulder, Lio gently nudged her. "See? It went fine."

"Yeah... you're right..." Thalia smiles weakly, glancing up at her dads. "I... I'm gonna go out for a drive."

"Okay, bud," Galo pats Thalia on the back as she gets up.

"We're gonna go ahead to your house, okay?" Lio picked up his book and stood up. "We'll let Milo take a break."

" _Please_ let him take a nap, if anyone's been more stressed out than me from today, it's him," Thalia chuckles. "I'll see you guys at dinner."

Before Galo or Lio could say their goodbyes, the door had closed.

"Should we go follow her?" Lio asked, but he already had the car keys in his hands. "We should go follow her--"

" _No, no, no--_ " Galo held Lio back from exiting and pulled him back onto the couch. "She's gonna be okay, she just needs some space before dinner."

Lio grumbles.

"Look," Galo gently turns Lio's head toward him. "Thalia may be impulsive, but she's also knows what she's doing. She gets that from you, you know?"

Galo gets up and stretches, cracking his back in the process. " _Whoo!_ That is some old person nonsense, right there! Haha!"

Lio smiles, shaking his head fondly as he gets up from his seat. "Okay, come on. We should get to Thalia's so Milo can take a nap. Meis and Gueira would kill us if they found out we could have prevented their son from collapsing."

"Bold of you to assume that I wouldn't be their sole sacrifice."

Lio rolls his eyes and pulls his husband to the door. "Let's go."

"Heeey."

When Thalia turned around, she sees the last person she wanted to see.

"Hey."

Arie took a detour from his walk toward her to step on a leaf that looked particularly crunchy.

It was.

"You don't sound too happy to see me. Makes sense considering that you drove all the way to the lake after I got out of filming."

Even though Arie sounded disappointed, it didn't wipe the smile from his face. It only made Thalia feel worse.

"I'm just really tired, Arie."

"Yeah, I bet. You've been campaigning ever since you ran for student government in middle school," Arie said as he finally reached the spot next to Thalia and looked out to the lake, past the mountains, and to the setting sun. "Only difference is that you have kids now instead of being a kid."

"I'm sorry that I doubted you, Arie."

That catches her brother off guard. "Huh?"

"I was so stressed out today because I thought that you were gonna say something that the media was going to use against me, but I forgot that you've always had my back when it comes to these things," Thalia shifts her footing. "Like when you sat down that reporter and gave him a powerpoint presentation-- which, by the way, do you just carry that on you?"

Arie fished out his keys from his jacket pocket and picked out a small rectangle. "I carry one on me at all times. Pops always said that you'd never know when you'd have to make a presentation and he was right."

"Yeah, dad looked so impressed yet distressed-- he definitely lost a bet to someone."

"Oh yeah, it was with Aunt Lucia and Uncle Gueira, they cleared everyone out on that pool."

"Anyway," Thalia looks at her brother. "I didn't want to just apologize, I wanted to thank you."

Arie blinked and cocked his head, not sure what his sister was talking about.

"What you said was really nice-- the first part too, I guess, but not in the context of the conversation. But," Thalia shakes her head. "You're really getting up there in terms of popularity and stuff, so it means a lot having your endorsement. Again, I shouldn't have doubted you."

"Aw, sis," Arie nudges her. "I know I'm an airhead. They didn't call me Arie-Head back in high school for nothing."

"But--"

Arie shakes his head. "Pops is never ashamed to admit that he's a firefighting idiot and dad says that he loves that about him because it's what got them together in the first place. That he'd rather have a kind idiot than a mean smart person."

"I mean, yeah, but pops knows how to talk to people and you know how to talk up a person! Like, you could go into management or something if--" Before Thalia can finish, Arie cuts her off with a laugh that echoes throughout the forest.

"Uh-uh. I don't think I could do what Egan does, I'm surprised he hasn't quit."

"It's because he's your boyfriend."

"I know, but still."

"I mean it, though."

"Hmm," Arie hums. "Thanks, but no thanks." 

"Alright."

It's silent for a moment before Thalia speaks up again. "So what brings you back to Promepolis? I thought you weren't gonna stop by here until later."

"You're kidding, right?"

Thalia blinked. "...How would I be kidding?"

"Thalia--" Arie snickers before he goes into another laughing fit. "I came here to vote! I know there's absentee voting and stuff, but it hits different compared to physically voting here."

Before Thalia can say anything, Arie crouches down and lets out a groan. Thalia rolls her eyes because she knows her brother did that just so she couldn't ask him why he didn't get his papers in order for voting. So she just settled on tapping his back with the tip of her shoe. "Are you okay?"

"Mmmmmmmm no," Arie groans. "I've been wearing these pants-heels all day and my feet are killing me."

"Dude, you're tall enough."

Arie shakes his head. "Uh-uh, I wanna be taller."

Thalia shakes her head. "C'mon, we should head back. I told dad and pops that I'd be back by six and if you're here, there's no one that can stop them from calling up Aunt Lucia to get into a mech to go out looking for us."

"Aunt Aina would stop them."

"Aunt Aina's out on a date," Thalia said in a sing song voice.

"What, no way?" Arie shoots up, standing, but stumbling slightly. Thankfully for him, Thalia grabs his arm to prevent him from falling. "With who? What? How?"

Thalia laughs as she starts walking back to the car.

"Thalia!" Arie follows her. "Thalia. Come on, _Thaliaaaaaaa._ "

As Arie continued to beg her for more information, even when their fathers had scolded them over the dinner table as Thalia fed her daughter from her high chair, Thalia felt the most relaxed in months. So much so that when she didn't fuss over the next day's schedule, Milo grew concerned.

"Hey hon, are you feeling okay?" He asked in a whisper. They just got their daughter to fall asleep and were on their way to catch up with Arie and Egan with their fathers. Meis and Gueira may have not been able to make it in time for dinner, but that didn't stop them from raiding the leftovers as Galo and Lio gave Egan some lighthearted interrogation.

Thalia nodded. "Yeah, everything's fine."

And she really meant it.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The next one will have more Galo and Lio in it, I promise.
> 
> But until then, I'm @https_aj on both [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/https_aj/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/https_aj). (Expect a whole lot of Promare stuff on Twitter, especially.)


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